


For You

by wisia



Series: For You [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 19:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5882680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisia/pseuds/wisia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chat Noir always knew what he would do for Ladybug. What he didn’t know was how far Ladybug would go for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For You

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to work on my fluffy fic, but instead I wrote angst. I couldn't get it out of my head. Stupidly, I thought I was going to write porn. I was totally wrong.

When the sky didn’t clear, when that familiar red swirl haze didn’t sweep through the city, Adrien knew something had gone incredibly wrong. He pressed a hand to his chest and felt the barest hint of pain. The blow to his chest had disappeared, but still Adrien opened his eyes to a darkened heaven.

“W-what happened?” Adrien croaked. He struggled to sit, and there she was. His lady standing barely a feet away.

“Chat,” she said, raw and broken.

He tilted his head, and as his eyes finally cleared out of its foggy state—she had turned her head away. He couldn’t see the expression in her eyes, not like that. The wind blew through them as if creating a gulf from him to her, and Adrien couldn’t shake the unmistakable feeling that it had gone more than wrong. It was devastating.

“Ladybug,” he said, urgently. Pushed himself up to stand. “The akuma. It’s—“

“It’s still here.”

She said it so finally, as if that was the end.

It wasn’t. Adrien knew his lady wouldn’t let that be the end. Had to believe that even as that wrong feeling went deeper into his gut and senses. He could feel Plagg pulling inside, and Adrien forced Plagg quiet. They had a job to do.

“What are we going to do next?” He reached for his baton, and his lady didn’t speak. Didn’t move. It was so unlike her that he had to pause. “Ladybug?”

She tossed him her yo-yo, and he almost dropped his baton to catch it. “There is no next. Not for me.”

Adrien dropped his baton then. The sound of it against the concrete rang loud, but it didn’t take the away that deafening silence in the space around them. He stepped one foot closer, nearer, and she smiled.

Ladybug smiled, and it wasn’t the right smile. He didn’t know what made it click, and he—

“What did you do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did you do?” Adrien tried to quell down the panic, and Plagg pulled at him again and again he shoved Plagg back. The yo-yo in his hand fell to the floor, clattering. The weight of it too much in his hand for such a tiny thing. “Ladybug, _what did you do_?”

His fingers twitched to shake her.

“I honestly don’t know,” and Ladybug laughed a terrible laugh as she finally looked at him. Her blue eyes met his, and they were dark, unreadable, and Adrien couldn’t, didn’t want to—

“I’m not supposed to use the lucky charm, not like that.” She gestured to his chest, and Adrien’s eyes went down. His heart thumped faithfully, and he remembered. The akuma was—had killed him.

“You.” Adrien couldn’t voice it. His mouth was so dry.

“You weren’t dead,” Ladybug answered. As if that was all the answer. “You were dying, and I couldn’t—“

“But—you shouldn’t have done that!” Adrien’s voice went sharp. “You’re supposed to save Paris and free that butterfly. It’s not worth me.”

“I don’t care.”

“Ladybug!”

“I couldn’t lose you.”

“What?” Adrien reeled back as if physically hit by the words.

“I couldn’t lose you,” and it was no more than a whisper but perfectly clear to Adrien’s cat ears.

“No, no.” He felt his tail wagged behind, jerking unevenly. “That’s not supposed to happen.”

“Well, it did.”

“You can’t. It’s—I’m supposed to—“

“Be the one? Like you always do?” Ladybug demanded. “You always put yourself in danger. You saved me, hundreds of times over, and…we’re partners.”

“Lady, you don’t understand.” This was Chat Noir’s job. To protect his lady’s back. To be the bad to her good.

“ _You_ don’t understand. I can’t do it without you.” Ladybug reached for her ears, where the red with black spotted miraculous rested.

Adrien lunged forward, grabbed her wrists. “You can’t!”

“I have to,” but she didn’t tug away from his grip. Merely looked at him and nearly swallowed him whole with her blue, blue eyes. She could always do that with just one glance.

“Ladybug.”

“I can’t be her anymore,” and it was only one motion. One that Adrien didn’t even know if he could have stopped. The brief light was bright, and when it settled Adrien looked into his classmate’s eyes.

Marinette.

His grip slackened, and this wasn’t how he wanted to know. How he wanted to find out.

Marinette slipped her wrists, her delicate thin wrists out of his palms, and a red kwami settled into the formed cup of her hand.

“Tikki,” she said, and Adrien could barely registered what he was seeing. Plagg twitched inside of him, perhaps at the proximity of the other kwami. He didn’t know. All Adrien could see was this scene unfolding before him. That he couldn’t stop.

“Thank you,” Marinette said. “I’m sorry.”

She held the earrings, her miraculous, in her other hand, brought it close to Tikki.

“Marinette, I’m…”

“It’s okay,” Marinette said, voice not shaking one bit. She shook the earrings so they jangled. “I know the consequences. Come on. You need to find a new ladybug before the akuma destroys everything.”

Tikki nodded. “Be safe, Marinette. You know this isn’t the end, right?”

“I’ll deal with it,” Marinette said firmly, and Tikki grabbed the earrings.  Marinette lifted her hand up to Adrien, and Ladybug’s kwami eyed him, as if she could see right through him.

“Hello,” she said.

“Please,” Adrien blurted out. “She can’t—“

He would beg. He would give up being Chat. This wasn’t right.

“I’m sorry,” Tikki said. “It’s against the rules. I can’t—“

Plagg stirred inside him, and Adrien fought it. “Please. I would do anything. She has to—“

“Tell Plagg, I’ll see him next time. Marinette was lucky to have you as her Chat Noir,” and then the kwami was gone in a blur of red.

Adrien watched her go helplessly. Then, there was a light touch on his hand.

“Chat,” Marinette said softly.

“Marinette, I can’t.” She sat behind him in class. She was his classmate, and she was his Lady. Even now, she was still his Lady.

“Chat,” Marinette said again, and Adrien went quiet. She leaned up, brushed a kiss against his cheek. “Thanks for everything.”

Adrien reached for his ring, desperate. “Then, you have to know I’m—“

Marinette shook her head, pressed a hand on top of his, right above his ring. “It’s better not to know.”

“But I know you’re Ladybug.”

“Was,” Marinette corrected, and she was brilliant standing there as she went on. “It’s better if I don’t know. In case, someone tries to get me to say it. You’ll be safe if I don’t know who you are.”

“I’m not safe if you’re not there.”

“You’ll have her, the new one. Now, go on. You have Paris to save,” and wasn’t that just like Ladybug? Reminding him that the city came first.

“You’re one to talk,” Adrien finally managed.

“I’m pawful, aren’t I? Go.”

Adrien squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't even laugh at the pun. “What if I—“

“Don’t even ask that,” Marinette said. “Go.”

And Adrien never could refuse his Lady.


End file.
